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El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

bbc.com

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Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#531

Post by [deleted] »

Dzugaru wrote: post #517
ar_lan wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This weird meme that Bitcoin is so beneficial to criminal activity (especially in comparison with physical cash)... I don't know where it started, but I wish its completely bad-faith nature would die. Sure, the Silk Road started, but the feds have wised up on how to trace Bitcoin since then - it's fairly straight-forward given the public-nature of the blockchain.

You must be joking? There is a trivial way to hide the traces by using mixers. Why do you think ransomware and black markets today exclusively run crypto not fiat?

[deleted]

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#532

Post by bitobserver »

Shosty123 wrote: post #475
jokoon wrote: post #230

I think it's time that we need some expert opinion and debunking of bitcoin. Elon Musk sold his bitcoins, Bill Gates was against it, Warren Buffet mocked it. One could easily make a fun documentary about all the disappointments of bitcoin. The MtGox theft was a wakeup call.

Elon already clarified that Tesla did not sell their Bitcoin.

Tesla sold 10% of their Bitcoin in Q1.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/elon-mus...

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#533

Post by pinkybanana »

loceng wrote: post #482
slim wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems legit to me. It worked. There was no reason for them to want to cash out apart from resistance to change.

Meanwhile whoever donated it is seemingly furthering adoption of it helping solidify the unnecessary increasingly large wealth transfer from later adopters to earlier adopters - a promise where the money is only worth the artificial price if enough of society adopt it to allow early adopters to be made whole again without crashing the price..

So what. That guy helped the poor people, and helped himself even more. However on absolute terms, everyone involved is better off. If you are unhappy on how he did it, maybe you can donate your funds to poor people in a no-strings attached way. I don't see however why that would be much better for society.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#534

Post by madacol »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #486
madacol wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have onchain BTC, and you can decide to put them in a LN channel with another party (this causes an onchain transaction) You and that party can now transact freely between each other with no fees, but if that other party is a gateway, it can route payments through it and through other gateways too, and each of them charge fees for routing. Once any of the parties decide to close the channel, is when a new onchain…

Interesting. So it's like lots of little ledgers, each channel stays open until N number of transactions between two people complete, then the finally tally is pushed onchain when the channel closes. Am I wrong to thing this sounds a little risky? Like, that channel could be "lost" after the goods/services were exchanged, leaving the seller holding the bag. I don't understand what kind of recourse the seller has to L…

Each update to the channel is a new transaction that references the opening transaction, on each update, this transaction is replaced with a new one, so in practice only the last transaction is kept (old transactions become dangerous to publish)

To know how they update trustlessly you should read my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27451184

LN eliminates the need of escrow completely by using bitcoin's script (smart contracts) in clever ways and a bit of cryptography

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#535

Post by rspeele »

vmception wrote: post #503
angry_octet wrote: post #79

Amazingly shortsighted. The primary beneficiaries of this will be organised crime, who will now be able to wash the Bitcoin via El Salvador to convert it to dollars, which they can use to buy trade items and export the profits. The number one export of El Salvador is actually people. If they were concerned about remittance fees they could just set up a bank in the US with low fees, instead of getting kickbacks from O…

An empty bitcoin block and a full bitcoin block use the same amount of energy Use and El Salvador’s use has no influence on that The hyperbole only marginalizes yourself

The price of bitcoin determines how miners get paid, which determines how much energy they can (and rationally should) spend on mining.

This news appears to have spiked the price of Bitcoin.

Presumably, if El Salvador actually implements this policy and starts using Bitcoin that would also increase demand for Bitcoin and increase its price.

Additionally, a full bitcoin block with high fees pays for more mining expenditure than an empty one. So if there is high demand for block space, that also can increase mining energy usage.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#536

Post by danlugo92 »

GranularRecipe wrote: post #19

I wonder to what degree this is related to the prevalence of organized crime (Bitcoin being a 'currency' of the black market).

Drug dealers making $2k a month benefit from bitcoin.

Drug dealers making $1m a month can go directly to the bank and have it laundered haven't you read the news?

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#537

Post by kerng »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #350
BurnGpuBurn wrote: post #86

"Bitcoin is positioned to disrupt the remittances industry in El Salvador, estimated at about $5 billion annually. Most families in towns like El Zonte do not have bank accounts, and rely on services such as Western Union WU +0.5%, which take 5-10% in fees. The closest Western Union is approximately one hour by bus, requiring the recipient of the cash transfer to take the bus back with cash on hand, creating a safety…

According to the article, the town didn't even want to use Bitcoin. An anonymous donor gifted them a large amount of Bitcoin on the condition that they must learn how to use Bitcoin and advocate for the use of Bitcoin: > After meeting with several philanthropies in the region, all of which wanted to take the funds and convert them into fiat to cover the community's immediate needs, the donor partnered with Michael Pe…

Sounds like what a typcial Silicon Valley startup would do - and historically it worked pretty well.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#538

Post by fatsdomino001 »

angry_octet wrote: post #79

Amazingly shortsighted. The primary beneficiaries of this will be organised crime, who will now be able to wash the Bitcoin via El Salvador to convert it to dollars, which they can use to buy trade items and export the profits. The number one export of El Salvador is actually people. If they were concerned about remittance fees they could just set up a bank in the US with low fees, instead of getting kickbacks from O…

Not gonna lie, all this makes me want to move to El Salvador now. Strongly considering incorporating my SaaS there now but have to look further into it, but interest is definitely piqued.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#539

Post by sabhiram »

Dzugaru wrote: post #506
vmception wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An empty bitcoin block and a full bitcoin block use the same amount of energy Use and El Salvador’s use has no influence on that The hyperbole only marginalizes yourself

This argument is deeply flawed for an obvious reason. E.g. why do you vote if your vote is only one of a hundred million?

Because 99,999,999 != 100,000,000?

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#540

Post by minsc__and__boo »

ar_lan wrote: post #508
angry_octet wrote: post #79

Amazingly shortsighted. The primary beneficiaries of this will be organised crime, who will now be able to wash the Bitcoin via El Salvador to convert it to dollars, which they can use to buy trade items and export the profits. The number one export of El Salvador is actually people. If they were concerned about remittance fees they could just set up a bank in the US with low fees, instead of getting kickbacks from O…

This weird meme that Bitcoin is so beneficial to criminal activity (especially in comparison with physical cash)... I don't know where it started, but I wish its completely bad-faith nature would die. Sure, the Silk Road started, but the feds have wised up on how to trace Bitcoin since then - it's fairly straight-forward given the public-nature of the blockchain.

Well, Monero is the crypto of choice these days for drug dealers, due to the fact that feds have backtraced BTC transactions to bust people.

Most trusted BTC exchanges are going KYC so even tax evaders have to start reconsidering.

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